Aloha
Filing Flight Plan
- Joined
- Feb 16, 2024
- Messages
- 6
- Display Name
Display name:
Mike
I'm a PPL currently wrapping up my IR with the end goal of flying professionally. (Don't worry, this isn't an "are the airlines going to be hiring X years from now?!" post.) I'm hoping somebody will be able to give me some insight into a couple opportunities that I have. Both of these jobs are full-time and after speaking with both hiring managers, it sounds like they are both semi-flexible on creating a schedule to give me a few days each week that I can dedicate to time-building up to 250 for CPL & CFI (which at this point is my primary focus.)
My thought process is to start building an aviation resume for when I hit the magic 1,500 hours. I don't know what the hiring landscape will look like when I get there, but I'd rather have some experience outside of the standard 1,200 dual given CFI/CFII resumes that I assume flood the job boards daily. I have solid experience in the business world over the past 13 years, but unfortunately not a ton of those skills/jobs translate into aviation.
Job 1 is a Dispatcher at a local 121 school. Check planes in/out, verify endorsements/docs, deal with scheduling/maintenance, all of the standard stuff. I'm currently at student at a Part 61 school, so working in more structured environment that is supposed to emulate professional flight is intriguing. I'm hoping it will open the door for a CFI position there, once I get to that point. I think I'm building a decent reputation at my current flight school as well to eventually instruct, but it would be nice to have my foot in the door in a couple places when that time comes.
Job #2 is a Line Service Tech at a GA airport nearby with a ton of 91 & 135 jet operations. Heavily labor intensive and unbearably hot in the summer, but I always hear the anecdotal stories of somebody shaking the right person's hand that lead to their career.
The pay is obviously terrible for each position, but I've been fortunate to come from a career that's allowing me to pay for flight school out of pocket without the stress of HAVING to work as well. I'm purely looking at these as resume builders and/or networking opportunities. The way I'm seeing it is that a Dispatcher position may be beneficial to getting a CFI slot and that's about it. I don't imagine it carries a ton of weight once I'm talking to the big boys, but maybe I'm wrong. I think the Line Service Tech position probably carries zero weight for any other job in aviation and that I'm just rolling the dice hoping to hit a jackpot by talking to the right person at the right time to score an unbelievable opportunity to hop into a jet as a low hour pilot and (hopefully) skip instructing altogether.
I'm hoping somebody who has made their rounds through 135, regionals, majors/legacies, etc could shed some light. Would either of these positions on a resume stand out over the other? Are either of them even worth it or should I just continue full steam and rack up my hours, drop resumes on desks, and do the CFI grind?
My thought process is to start building an aviation resume for when I hit the magic 1,500 hours. I don't know what the hiring landscape will look like when I get there, but I'd rather have some experience outside of the standard 1,200 dual given CFI/CFII resumes that I assume flood the job boards daily. I have solid experience in the business world over the past 13 years, but unfortunately not a ton of those skills/jobs translate into aviation.
Job 1 is a Dispatcher at a local 121 school. Check planes in/out, verify endorsements/docs, deal with scheduling/maintenance, all of the standard stuff. I'm currently at student at a Part 61 school, so working in more structured environment that is supposed to emulate professional flight is intriguing. I'm hoping it will open the door for a CFI position there, once I get to that point. I think I'm building a decent reputation at my current flight school as well to eventually instruct, but it would be nice to have my foot in the door in a couple places when that time comes.
Job #2 is a Line Service Tech at a GA airport nearby with a ton of 91 & 135 jet operations. Heavily labor intensive and unbearably hot in the summer, but I always hear the anecdotal stories of somebody shaking the right person's hand that lead to their career.
The pay is obviously terrible for each position, but I've been fortunate to come from a career that's allowing me to pay for flight school out of pocket without the stress of HAVING to work as well. I'm purely looking at these as resume builders and/or networking opportunities. The way I'm seeing it is that a Dispatcher position may be beneficial to getting a CFI slot and that's about it. I don't imagine it carries a ton of weight once I'm talking to the big boys, but maybe I'm wrong. I think the Line Service Tech position probably carries zero weight for any other job in aviation and that I'm just rolling the dice hoping to hit a jackpot by talking to the right person at the right time to score an unbelievable opportunity to hop into a jet as a low hour pilot and (hopefully) skip instructing altogether.
I'm hoping somebody who has made their rounds through 135, regionals, majors/legacies, etc could shed some light. Would either of these positions on a resume stand out over the other? Are either of them even worth it or should I just continue full steam and rack up my hours, drop resumes on desks, and do the CFI grind?
